


If You're Still Breathing

by Dragomir



Series: Stocks [7]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Friendship, Gen, Murder, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:52:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 3,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4440110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragomir/pseuds/Dragomir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Actions have consequences. Lots of consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cullen

**Author's Note:**

> I liiiiiiiiiiiiive! Yes, Stocks continues with a follow-up to _The Lucky Ones_.

He rearranges the guard rotations on the battlements near Bull’s tower. The guards who didn’t go near the stocks – the ones he’s heard expressing disgust with the Inquisitor and the Inquisitor’s actions – are put on schedule there more often than not. The guards who were out of Skyhold on Inquisition business take the day rotation. The ones who were in Skyhold but hate what was done to Dorian are put on night shift.

It is not enough.

It does not make up for his participation in the r…the…

He is a damned coward and it is his fault that Dorian was brutalized. He did not stop the Inquisitor. He did not order his men to stand down. The least he can do in the aftermath is make sure that none of the soldiers who participated in the r… No one who participated in the assault…no. It was rape. He has to call it rape, even though he doesn’t want to because that will make it _real_ and not just a theoretical exercise that he can distance himself from. It has to be real because he was a coward and he didn’t stand up to the Inquisitor, so he can’t let it fade into the background.

Every soldier who participated in _raping_ Dorian is posted as far from the Iron Bull’s tower as he can. He rearranges guard schedules so that there are guards he can _personally_ vouch for are near Dorian at all times – discreetly, because the last thing he wants to do is send the mage into another panic. He is the reason so many people were able to rape Dorian, and it is his fault.

Cullen wishes he could drink himself into a stupor, but knows he is not allowed that luxury. He has to face the consequences of his actions, and he’ll make up for it. Somehow.

He never will, he knows.

He does not deserve absolution.


	2. Vivienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing happened. Therefore, she is not doing _anything_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vivienne's levels of denial are impressive, just saying.

Nothing happened in the courtyard. Nothing. She will cling to that until the day she dies. To do otherwise would be to admit that the Inquisitor was no better than the worst of the Templars from her childhood. So, Vivienne does what she does best: If it does not affect her, it is not real. She will ignore it until it goes away.

Except…

Well, if Dorian happens to receive a few bottles of _decent_ wine, it’s only because she wants to share it with the one person in Skyhold who will _appreciate_ the vintage. If some nice, winter-appropriate robes in his favorite colors make their way to Bull’s quarters, it’s because she has no desire to hear him complain about how cold he is. If a few of the guards she’d heard crowing about what they’d done to him go missing and turn up looking rather brutally beaten hours or even days later, it’s because they’ve been too loud and she has a headache. Nothing happened to Dorian. Nothing. Therefore, she is _not_ sending him gifts or disciplining soldiers for him. It was going to happen anyways, and Dorian’s punishment-that-did-not- _happen_ is just a convenient excuse should someone ask.

Nothing. Happened.

When the Inquisitor storms into the great hall, demanding to know where the people who rearranged their quarters are, Vivienne hides a smirk behind a book and reaches for her wineglass. The Inquisitor needs to know that even _they_ are not beyond her reach. Not that she’s going to tell the malignant, pestilential little walking _plague_ that she’s behind the mess upstairs. She does make a note to tip the movers _generously_ when the Inquisitor screams in frustration and goes back upstairs to try and fix the mess.

She is not being petty. She is not getting vengeance for a friend, and she is not doing any of this because it could have been _her_ in the stocks.

She is not doing _any_ of this, because _nothing_ happened.

And that’s all there is to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, if you piss her off, she's _scary_.


	3. Cassandra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She will not fail again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Convenient explanations abound for _everyone_ in this story...

If she is brutal in training sessions, it is because the soldiers are _lackluster_ in every way possible. They need to toughen up and learn how to wield their weapons properly, instead of wielding them like children playing with wooden sticks. So, she is brutal on them and criticizes them and adds punishments on top of punishments when they cannot follow her instructions.

That is, at least, the excuse she gives Cullen and the Inquisitor when they question her. Cullen eyes her oddly for a few moments after the Inquisitor storms off, before giving her a list of names.

“I’ve noticed their form needs work,” he tells her. Cassandra nods and notes the names on the list before tossing it into the fire. If she happens to be harsher on them later, it is as Cullen said: Their form needed some extra work. If they limp away – or are carried away, in some cases – from every session grumbling, it is how soldiers always act after a tough training session.

When she isn’t brutalizing Inquisition soldiers in training, Cassandra sits at the foot of the steps that lead up to the Iron Bull’s tower. She reads her trashy novels and no one questions her presence there. If anyone notices that her eyes track soldiers who come too close to the stairs and that her hand strays closer to her sword when they set foot at the bottom of the stairs, they don’t say anything.

She wasn’t able to protect Dorian when the Inquisitor had him tortured, but she can protect him _now_.

She will not fail again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Cassandra, how we love thee...


	4. Varric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is a deshyr of the Merchant's Guild, and with that position come certain...perks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do not mess with Varric's friends.

Varric is the highest-ranking dwarf in Skyhold. Well, nominally the highest ranking. He’s a deshyr of the Merchant’s Guild and the other dwarves know better than to argue with him. Usually, he lives and lets live unless he needs to step in before a few morons try to start a blood feud over something petty. He’s not much of a merchant, but he’s still the only deshyr in Skyhold and that lends his words _weight_.

So, if he wants a few dwarves to follow certain people around Skyhold and report back to him, a few dwarves will discreetly follow certain people around Skyhold and report back to him. If he wants a few dwarves to get him certain technically-not-banned items, a few dwarves will get him technically-not-banned items and will smile while doing so. (He’ll smile more when Dorian lights up for a few brief seconds when Varric gives him these technically-not-banned items.)

If he wants a few dwarves to remove certain people from their mortal coil, they will discretely shuffle certain people off the mortal coil and erase evidence of their existence. (Varric gets a chuckle out of that when he hears that his people have gone above and beyond in responding to his little request.)

And, most importantly: If Varric Tethras wants a few soldiers killed publically but in a plausibly deniable manner, then Varric Tethras will get to watch a few Inquisition soldiers suffer some rather _nasty_ training accidents that can never be proven as murder, despite investigations into the matter.

The icing is that the Inquisitor _knows_ it’s him behind the accidents and can’t even _prove it_.

Varric smiles every time the Inquisitor snarls at him.

No one hurts his friends and gets away with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is why no one wants to piss Varric off if they can help it.


	5. Cole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People seem to forget that Cole was a serial killer before he left the White Spire...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do not mess with Cole's friends. Seriously, don't.

The pain lingers on and he can’t help it. Not really. Wooden ducks and small toys that made Dorian smile when he saw them even though it hurt won’t help. Not this time. This is something he doesn’t know how to fix.

He can’t understand how to fix this. He has tried. He has made soldiers forget what they did to Dorian. That didn’t work – Dorian cried when they tried to approach him. He had to make the soldiers forget again. (The Iron Bull had _not_ been happy.) He wants to make Dorian forget, but he _knows_ that would not help – Dorian would not know which soldiers had hurt him and they would do it again. (Varric had explained the consequences for him when he asked. Cole understood _consequences_ , at least.)

Dorian’s hurt made Cole think of Rhys, and Ser Evangeline, and the White Spire. He remembers killing the mages because he’d thought it made him real, because he thought he'd been helping... He knows it’s wrong now, but it had seemed right at the time. Now, he kills people who make others hurt for the Inquisition. That’s good. It helps people, heals the hurt, and…

Rhys is not here to tell him he shouldn’t kill people. Seeker Lambert is not here either, to call him a demon. No one here can keep him out of places they don’t want him – not when he can make them forget that they let him in.

No one here will tell him to _stop_.

He killed mages in the White Spire because they were afraid. He’d thought it would help them. It had, in a way. They weren’t afraid of the Templars anymore. The soldiers are easier.

And Dorian is safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, I think Quizzy's going to come to regret letting Cole stay on after this...


	6. Blackwall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he were a better man, he'd just tip them off the battlements and call it a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall is not a good man, but he's trying.

For once in his life, Blackwall is _glad_ that he was Thom Rainier. He’s glad that he was a scumbag – it makes it easier to blend in with the other scumbags. If he wants to sit with the soldiers that the _real_ Blackwall would have already dealt with, none of them are going to question him. He’s too much like them. And if he asks them what their favorite part was of ra… _punishing_ the Tevinter mage, all of them will regale him with glowing anecdotes of what they did to the boy. They’ll add details, even, embellishing their stories to seem more important. It’s soldiers talk, is all it is – soldiers like to boast. And as long as the ale keeps flowing, they’ll keep boasting.

He’s proud of himself for not letting his revulsion show as one man laughs about how he’d made the mage _beg_ to be violated. He’s proud of his ability to let go of his belt knife when the soldiers laugh and trade jabs with each other over who could make the mage scream the loudest. He has to uncurl his fingers one by one from the hilt as one soldier laughs about how she made the mage cry like a frightened child.

Blackwall bows out gracefully, claiming he’s had too much to drink as the women begin sharing their own stories. He’s disgusted with himself now, for his playacting and for pretending he _enjoyed_ listening to the soldiers discuss what they’d done to Dorian. The boy was a mage and a sodding noble, but he was a good lad, deep down. He was a good lad. And no one deserved what had been done to him.

He wonders if his paper-thin excuses about why he wasn’t there on the platform will hold up in the soldiers examine them too closely. But he doesn’t think anyone will examine them – they’re all too busy patting themselves on the back for being so _brave_ as to attack a bound, terrified, beaten _boy_. Not that their stories will reflect that – they’re the brave heroes who saved Skyhold from a blood mage.

He passes his list of the worst offenders to Cullen when they pass in the halls, and he tries not to think too hard about what a coward he is.

He should have done more. He should have been a good man. He should have put a stop to this.

And all he’s doing to make up for his inaction is finding the soldiers who plan on ambushing Dorian so they can have another turn.

If he were a better man, he’d just tip them off the battlements and be done with it.

He prays that it is enough to pass on the names.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is why Cullen and Cassandra have their lists.


	7. Sera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contrary to popular belief, she _can_ actually cook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sera is vindictive. Do not mess with her friends.
> 
> This chapter is super late because RL happens and I lose track of shit. Next one should be up sooner.

Contrary to popular belief, she _can_ actually cook. Well, bake. It’s the same thing, more or less – follow a recipe or fiddly instructions, keep an eye on what you’re making, and pray it doesn’t catch fire, explode, or do something nasty that wasn’t supposed to happen. She doesn’t bake a lot, but she likes trying to make nice things. Especially for her friends.

Mages are scary, and they summon demons who can hurt people and they just hurt people in general. Nobles are worse, because they hurt little people – people-people, like her and the servants and people what don’t have anyone to speak up for them. But sometimes… Well, sometimes she’s wrong and mages are okay and nobles aren’t so bad.

Mages need to be corralled and nobles need to be put in their place, but her friends… They don’t need that shite. Her friends need gifts that make them smile, even if it’s a little watery and they look like they’re going to puke when she touches them by accident. Point is, her friends deserve better than the shite that happens to them.

She doesn’t really like fiddly recipes, but she likes her friends being happy, so fiddly recipes kill two birds with one stone and she can just suck it up and figure them out.

Sera gets vindictive pleasure out of acquiring her supplies from the pissbags who think they can get away with hurting her friends. The people in the kitchen thought they would get to play, so now they have to pay for it. Sugar gets replaced with salt – the salt the rats pissed in, because she needs salt too, but not that kind. Honey goes missing too – and some of it ends up smeared inside helmets, so Jackboot gets to yell at his people for being messy and out of uniform. (And she gets a dirty look when she throws cookies at the soldiers running punishment laps, but Jackboot doesn’t tell her off for it.) She steals everything she needs, and the best part is that no one can prove it was her causing all that chaos in the kitchen. (She even manages to pretend to be sad that a few of the kitchen staff – the right ones, the ones who hurt her friends, but not the others who are scared of speaking up – get whipped for the mess it causes upstairs that pissed off a bunch of noble pissbags playing nice with the bleeding Inquisitor.)

The trouble she goes to to steal all of her supplies and translate fiddly recipes are worth it when Dorian gives her a watery smile as she hands over stupid fiddly cookies from Tevinter.

Mages are scary and nobles are pissbags, but Dorian’s both and he’s alright.

And everyone needs cookies sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She's not outright malicious, but she can be pretty vindictive and disruptive when she wants to be.


	8. Solas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He will bind the broken pieces back together with bits of the Fade if he must, but he will _never_ turn his back on one of his pups.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Solas and Dorian are (grudgingly) friends. Solas will move heaven and earth for his friends.
> 
> (I swear, some day I will remember to post on time.)

Dorian’s dreams are not troubled by virtue of strong tea and stronger potions. Solas sits at the mage’s bedside when the Iron Bull cannot, or when the Chargers need a break, or simply because there is no other choice. He reads softly from books the younger mage has declared the worst dross in the library, hoping to incite some sign from the boy. Dorian’s only response is to turn away from him. (It is better than the blank staring at the ceiling of previous weeks.)

When he can convince Dorian to drink potions – to _swallow_ them – without panicking, Solas takes the opportunity to sleep as well. He does not rest during his sleep either, because the Fade is a dangerous place for Dorian while he is vulnerable.

Never before has Solas actively fought demons and spirits, and _never_ has he torn them apart. The spirits understand, and learn to stay away. The demons take his actions as a challenge. (It is another thing Solas will blame the Inquisitor for, in a long list of actions.) Before the Inquisition, he and the spirits had shared knowledge and fields of dreams freely, and the demons had known enough to not encroach on the territory he eked out each time he dreamt.

Dorian has no such protection.

Twice now, Solas has battled himself past the point of exhaustion, fighting demons away from a frightened little boy hiding in the Fade. A spirit of Wisdom – not the friend he lost to foolish children – tells him that it is kinder to let the boy die than hope for a recovery that may never arrive. Solas snarls like the wolf he once was. He is not wise – he is the master of his pack, and he is enraged. The spirit leaves quickly.

He will bind the broken pieces together with bits of the Fade itself if he must, but he will _never_ turn his back on one of his pups. Not now. Not again.

Dorian lingers on in a world between sleep and dreams, and Solas wonders if, maybe, he should have offered the vial of poison on that first night, so many weeks ago. But then Dorian reacts – a slight shift, a disgusted sigh during the recitation of one of Divine Galatea’s scriptures, a tiny smile during a Tevinter fairy tale – and Solas tucks the vial a little deeper into his coat.

He will not need it.

Not for Dorian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That being said, the Inquisitor should expect a visit from the Dread Wolf...


	9. Josephine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She kills with words, not knives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People forget that Josephine is probably one of the most dangerous people in the Inquisition.

Her business contacts are _delightful_ people. For example: Adorno Ciel Otranto is a _wonderful_ young man, and she will not cut him off when he speaks, no matter how much she wishes he would stop _talking_. She will pretend she is interested until she has the proper opening in this conversation. (If this were any other time, say a party in Antiva, she would be _delighted_ to listen to him speak.) House Otranto and House Montilyet have always been friends, if not necessarily _good_ friends, since the Tower Age. It is, perhaps, the only reason Adorno is not even distressed about…well. The duel. He is not upset, and laughs happily as he says true love won the day.

Adorno is a _delight_ and, more importantly, he has _very_ extensive merchant contracts, contacts, and almost as many underhanded dealings as the Mercnahts’ Guild. And, if some of his contacts just happen to leave behind contracts with the Inquisition after she hints that the Inquisitor might just be running out of the funds to pay them, well... It’s not like she did anything to encourage them to _leave_.

Josephine’s thoughts turn to Dorian, and how a Crow hides among the servants allowed near him. That is the price she took from Adorno when she agreed to meet with him to increase the status of House Otranto. If the heirs of their Houses appear to like each other, it confers status on both. (More for Adorno, because House Otranto is not directly aligned with kingmakers.)

She could not protect Dorian from the Inquisitor’s wrath, but now she can make the Inquisition pay for what they did. The Inquisitor may wear the veneer of the devout, but they still need money and political allies. And all of those ties are _hers_ to sever if she wills it.

 _And funnily enough_ , Josephine thinks as she sips her tea and listens to Adorno speak about trade with Nevarra and tea smuggled from Tevinter and how much his new lover adores _both_ , _No one has realized it is_ my _will that commands the merchants._

She feels no remorse when the Inquisitor storms into her office and starts complaining that Farris the Representative has started refusing service and has made noises about leaving. Adorno raises an eyebrow questioningly as the Inquisitor storms back out. Josephine smiles.

It is easier to kill with words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, everyone's so lucky she has no approval rating, or the Inquisition would be screwed.
> 
> So, this chapter is heinously late because I've started my senior year, my classes are at incredibly inconvenient times for writing fic, and I had a family reunion about four days after school started. I will definitely have a new chapter up for y'all by midnight, though.


	10. Leliana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She culls her own people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leliana is a scary, scary woman, and you should never ever cross her.
> 
> So, this update is incredibly late. School is a nightmare, I'm working on a massive year-long project, and it's eating my energy. Which is why I'm posting this now, instead of waiting.

She culls her own people.

If they are loyal to the Inquisitor, then they are not loyal to _her_ and she cannot trust them. She culls them. Any and all of her people who participated in the gang rape in the courtyard find themselves on the receiving end of her blades. She was the Divine’s Left Hand for a reason, and they learn it in a personal fashion. She has no mercy. She is cold. She is _righteous_.

Sparrow. Wren. The twins - Quill and Scriber. Charter. Halla. Fisher. Sunset. Hunter.

Nine people culled. She writes letters to their family, telling them that they died in service to the Inquisitor. She tells their families that they did not suffer. (Leliana wishes she had had the time to torture them properly.) She writes nine letters of condolence for the families of her agents, and sends them with Scarlet.

The Inquisitor rages at her for the deaths of nine valued agents. Leliana smiles like a shark and strokes one of her raven’s ruffled feathers as the Inquisitor continues to rage at her. She is calm, collected, and far beyond the Inquisitor’s reach. The Inquisitor _knows_ this.

“Oh, Herald,” Leliana sighs when the rant dies down. “I’m only following your example.” She laughs softly as the Inquisitor pales.

And what an example it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is why you should always be on Leliana's good side.


	11. The Chargers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do not mess with the Chief's boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Chargers are a large, terrifying family and you don't hurt their family.

They take their own initiative after the scene in the courtyard. None of them will leave Dorian unattended for more than a few seconds if the Chief isn’t there with the altus mage. None of them go anywhere without another member of the Chargers, after Krem’s first altercation with the Inquisitor.

Krem finds a new place in the tavern to sit, one with a better view of the stairs that lead to Bull’s tower. The Inquisitor stops giving the Chargers jobs – although Krem is to blame for that. The Chargers will stay, but Krem always has an excuse ready to avoid speaking with them. (The best part is that the Chargers are too well-liked and too well-connected in Orlais to be easily gotten rid of, and Krem gets to watch the Inquisitor fume.)

Grim makes friends with the warden in the prison. Since he doesn’t speak and no one knows if he can write, no one’s exactly sure _why_ he’s down there or what he was doing. The warden looks suspiciously happy after a visit from Grim, and no one comments. (They do comment when certain soldiers start ending up in the cells that Foreman Gatsi declared to be structurally unsound. The prisoners aren’t moved, though, and the warden reports a few tragic accidents when the soldiers are released.)

Dalish and Skinner work as a team. No one was ever quite sure what the Iron Bull had meant when he said that Skinner had a tendency to mark her territory, but Dalish is quite happy to explain what Skinner is doing, and in excruciating detail. Needless to say, the Inquisitor had to replace a large number of items in the great hall when it became clear that the damage the half-feral elf had done to them couldn’t be repaired. (No one – including the nobles who had _seen_ her do it – was quite sure just how Skinner had climbed up the wall like that to deface a banner, and suspected that a rather gleeful Dalish was partially behind that.)

Stitches and the head surgeon got on – as Bull would put it, should anyone ask him – like unsecured gaatlok and fire: Lots of screaming, fire, and broken bones. On the rare times that they _did_ agree, every soldier in the vicinity found a reason to be _out_ of Skyhold. To that end, seeing Stitches going in and out of the infirmary on an almost daily basis sent most of the soldiers in the Inquisition into a panic. (Despite this sudden truce between the two, no one was ever able to prove that either healer had been behind the rash of accidental exsanguinations that cropped up in the barracks during the surgeon’s rounds for the next few weeks.)

Iron Bull threw six soldiers off the battlements outside his tower. No one questioned him when they saw a shaken-looking Dorian peering out through a crack between the door and the frame, grey eyes wide and fearful, one hand clutching at a blanket around his shoulders. Cullen swept the matter under the rug, and no one felt the need to inform the Inquisitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aren't they wonderful?
> 
> Also: There are about two more stories in this series, and then I'll be moving on to a larger project (thankfully not the one for school), which should be up after the Merry Month of Nano is over.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone will beat themselves up, get revenge, or both.


End file.
